The present invention relates to an apparatus for continuous wet-heat treatment of a cloth, in which a long cloth can be wet-heat treated eminently.
In subjecting a long cloth produced commercially to such treatments as scouring, bleaching, weight reduction, dyeing and resin finish under wet-heat continuously, it is conventional to use a high pressure steamer as a wet-heat treating chamber. Usually, a cloth to be treated is soaked with a treating solution in a treating solution tank provided outside of the steamer body, an excess of the treating solution absorbed in the cloth is squeezed with the use of a pair of squeeze rollers, the cloth is dried immediately for preventing the adhesion of the treating solution absorbed in the cloth to the seal rollers and to the guide rollers in the subsequent steps in the steamer body, and finally the resultant cloth is steamed in the steamer body for the treatment of the cloth with the treating solution.
However, in such a conventional wet-heat treating method, since the steamer body must be maintained with a high temperature and humidity atmosphere prior to the wet-heat treatment of a cloth, it requires a long time until the interior of the steamer body is heated to a prescribed high temperature and humidity condition to prolong a preparatory time for the treatment, and further a large quantity of heat energy must be consumed until the interior of the steamer body is made into a prescribed high temperature and humidity atmosphere.
In the case when a pair of seal mechanisms are provided at the cloth inlet and outlet of the steamer body for maintaining the interior of the steamer body with a high temperature and humidity atmosphere under pressure while allowing the taking in and out of a cloth continuously through the steamer body, a construction of the whole apparatus becomes complicated, and particularly, in a large size apparatus for practical use, the construction cost becomes unavoidably very high.
Moreover, in the conventional wet-heat treating method of a cloth, while the cloth soaked with a treating solution must be squeezed with the use of a pair of squeeze rollers for removing the excess of the treating solution absorbed in the cloth as mentioned above, the problem of unevenness is unavoidable in squeezing. That is to say, the width of a commercial cloth is at least 90 cm, and it requires a squeeze roller with a length at least the same as the width of the cloth, say at least 90 cm, for squeezing such a wide cloth continuously. With such a long squeeze roller, however, the squeezing pressure unavoidably differs between the central part and both end parts of the roller, causing unevenness in squeezing the treating solution from the cloth and consequently unevenness in the treatment. In dyeing, particularly, the occurrence of dyeing speck due to the unevenness in squeezing is a serious problem.